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I am extremely interested in direct democracy, and the possibility of using it for larger populations thanks to technology improvements. To my knowledge the mai

by shykes 13y ago

I am extremely interested in direct democracy, and the possibility of using it for larger populations thanks to technology improvements. To my knowledge the main argument against direct democracy has been "it only works for small groups". Could modern computing and telecommunications change that?

m_mueller 13y ago
First of all, yes, that's always the argument I hear. That and people not taking Switzerland seriously since it's anyway just Nazi gold and gangster banks enabling us to do what we do, right? Online voting tools could definitely change the cost as well as the legitimacy of running a superpower scale direct democracy. In Switzerland we largely handle it through voting by letter and every commune handles the counting - technically it's certainly possible to have fraud at that point, however at least I'm not aware of any case where a people's vote would have been faked that way. Anyway, for larger scale voting I'd have a look at this TED talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/david_bismark_e_voting_without_fraud.html http://www.ted.com/talks/david_bismark_e_voting_without_frau.... E-voting combined with tokens on paper seems to be the winner for me. But don't forget, the stability of the Swiss system doesn't only come from its direct democratic nature, I'd say the principle of proportionality applied to the government, as I mentioned above, is at least as important. In Switzerland this ensures both checks and balances as well as a government that represents the current political views of the parliament. Also, it lead to a multi-party system with 5 larger players and dynamic coalitions depending on the actual issue. Together with the constant fear of the people's vote this handles most issues quite neatly - even if the process tends to be a bit slower, the output of 'bullshit' is much lower than the things I read from abroad if you will.
scilro 13y ago
The main argument against direct democracy is the danger of majoritarian oppression: e.g. imagine calling a vote to reinstate slavery and succeeding because 51% of the population supports slavery. Having a set of laws like the Bill of Rights that is agreed upon by consensus and enforced by courts is a safeguard against that.
- mseebach 13y ago
  There's nothing in direct democracy inconsistent with a constitution securing basic rights and a supreme court enforcing it. Indeed, Switzerland has exactly that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Federal_Constitution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Federal_Constitution The main argument against, as I see it, is the lack of accountability, the prime example being California demanding more spending and lower taxes at the same time. Of course, indirect democracy has done very little to prevent that either. When Switzerland doesn't pass laws similar to California's, I think it's because they have a much more homogenous society where there is simply a large degree of agreement on how things should be done - and so, the remaining bits lend themselves well to be decided by direct democracy. That's also my response to the GP: no, no amount of interwebs and technology can turn a large and diverse population that disagrees fundamentally on many important issues into a small and homogenous one that agrees on most things.
  - rdouble 13y ago
    The Swiss aren't homogeneous, though. They have four official languages and 20% of the country are resident foreigners. The various cantons don't often agree with each other and only 30-40% of the country votes.
    - m_mueller 13y ago
      Thank you. Here it is again, the 'US isn't homogeneous' excuse.
- bicknergseng 13y ago
  It's not like representative democracy stops this... See 1865-1965.
- m_mueller 13y ago
  How likely is it that a majority of a modern society would agree to something crazy like this, vs. just the ruling party of an indirect democracy? Unfortunately we don't have much statistical evidence, since there's basically only Switzerland having such a system nationwide, but at least we know that in the history of this republic since 1848 there hasn't been such an incident, while the Weimarer Republic, culturally close to a majority of Swiss and under an indirect democratic rule, managed to elect a ruling party that went haywire.

by shykes 13y ago

m_mueller 13y ago

First of all, yes, that's always the argument I hear. That and people not taking Switzerland seriously since it's anyway just Nazi gold and gangster banks enabling us to do what we do, right? Online voting tools could definitely change the cost as well as the legitimacy of running a superpower scale direct democracy. In Switzerland we largely handle it through voting by letter and every commune handles the counting - technically it's certainly possible to have fraud at that point, however at least I'm not aware of any case where a people's vote would have been faked that way. Anyway, for larger scale voting I'd have a look at this TED talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/david_bismark_e_voting_without_fraud.html http://www.ted.com/talks/david_bismark_e_voting_without_frau.... E-voting combined with tokens on paper seems to be the winner for me. But don't forget, the stability of the Swiss system doesn't only come from its direct democratic nature, I'd say the principle of proportionality applied to the government, as I mentioned above, is at least as important. In Switzerland this ensures both checks and balances as well as a government that represents the current political views of the parliament. Also, it lead to a multi-party system with 5 larger players and dynamic coalitions depending on the actual issue. Together with the constant fear of the people's vote this handles most issues quite neatly - even if the process tends to be a bit slower, the output of 'bullshit' is much lower than the things I read from abroad if you will.

scilro 13y ago

The main argument against direct democracy is the danger of majoritarian oppression: e.g. imagine calling a vote to reinstate slavery and succeeding because 51% of the population supports slavery. Having a set of laws like the Bill of Rights that is agreed upon by consensus and enforced by courts is a safeguard against that.

mseebach 13y ago
There's nothing in direct democracy inconsistent with a constitution securing basic rights and a supreme court enforcing it. Indeed, Switzerland has exactly that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Federal_Constitution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Federal_Constitution The main argument against, as I see it, is the lack of accountability, the prime example being California demanding more spending and lower taxes at the same time. Of course, indirect democracy has done very little to prevent that either. When Switzerland doesn't pass laws similar to California's, I think it's because they have a much more homogenous society where there is simply a large degree of agreement on how things should be done - and so, the remaining bits lend themselves well to be decided by direct democracy. That's also my response to the GP: no, no amount of interwebs and technology can turn a large and diverse population that disagrees fundamentally on many important issues into a small and homogenous one that agrees on most things.
- rdouble 13y ago
  The Swiss aren't homogeneous, though. They have four official languages and 20% of the country are resident foreigners. The various cantons don't often agree with each other and only 30-40% of the country votes.
  - m_mueller 13y ago
    Thank you. Here it is again, the 'US isn't homogeneous' excuse.
bicknergseng 13y ago
It's not like representative democracy stops this... See 1865-1965.
m_mueller 13y ago
How likely is it that a majority of a modern society would agree to something crazy like this, vs. just the ruling party of an indirect democracy? Unfortunately we don't have much statistical evidence, since there's basically only Switzerland having such a system nationwide, but at least we know that in the history of this republic since 1848 there hasn't been such an incident, while the Weimarer Republic, culturally close to a majority of Swiss and under an indirect democratic rule, managed to elect a ruling party that went haywire.